


A Type of Beauty In Which There Is No Melancholy

by angelica_church_schuyler



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Spoilers for both the books and TV show, Wherein the orphans escape VFD and attempt to live normal-ish lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_church_schuyler/pseuds/angelica_church_schuyler
Summary: "I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy." - Charles Baudelaire.In which the Baudelaire orphans somehow manage to survive the unfortunate events they became entangled in, and attempt to live somewhat normal lives.A series of connected one shots set five or six years after The End, in a small seaside town in which there are few volunteers and even fewer fires.





	1. "I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old."

**Author's Note:**

> "She often forgot how young she was compared to the other “parents” at school.  
> She didn’t feel it."

It had taken the Baudelaire children years to find a place outside of the clutches of VFD.

The journey had been long and turbulent, with many false starts and false endings. Many a time Violet had whisked them away from someplace or another just as her family had started to feel comfortable, utterly convinced that a woman at the grocery store had been Esme Squalor in disguise, and they had to leave, now, no questions and no arguments.

Even after finding the small seaside town in which they now resided, and staying there with no sign of VFD for two years, her worry (Klaus often called it “paranoia”) had not subsided.

 

It made sense, she thought, to worry. She had spent her teenage years struggling against a wicked man who seemed only visible to herself and her siblings, and a strange organisation that had infiltrated and co-opted everything from her family to her favourite books.

It made perfect sense, she argued with Klaus, to meet and research all of Sunny’s potential teachers before enrolling her in the local school. Any of them could be a threat, a volunteer in disguise, a friend of a volunteer.

She believed she was totally justified in lashing out at another parent on Sunny’s first day of school. Beatrice was only a toddler then, and she’d been fussy that day. Klaus had been distracted trying to settle her, not noticing what Violet did. The woman had been staring at them all day, and Violet had been unable to stop the gears in her head spinning and the panic rising in her throat. All she could think of was the way people had stared at her on stage in ‘The Marvelous Marriage’, in the hallways at Prufrock Academy, in a surgical amphitheatre at Heimlich Hospital…

And she might have snapped. And yelled. And screamed. Just a little bit.  
There was no way, really, that she could’ve known that the woman was only confused by the sight of a nineteen year old girl clutching the hand of an excited six year old and a seventeen year old boy pushing a toddler in a stroller.

She often forgot how young she was compared to the other “parents” at school.

She didn’t feel it.

 

She felt that it was totally reasonable to want to meet (“and interrogate,” Klaus would add) the parents of Sunny’s school friends before allowing Sunny to befriend them. Any of them could want to use her little sister, to hurt her, to lure the rest of them in.

It was perfectly acceptable that she was already asking Klaus to use his job at the local library to research the children who might be Beatrice’s future classmates (and their parents). Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny had spent years and years protecting their foster daughter, attempting to raise her as best as they could, and so far it had gone quite well.  
She was only five, but she was already inventive, and smart, and kind, and creative, and noble. She often reminded Violet of her own mother, the original Beatrice; not only because of her name, but because Violet often wondered if the love and pride she felt every time she looked at the little girl was the same way her mother had felt about her. 

Violet could understand then, how someone could lift a car up off of a baby, or stand in front of a man with a gun, or build a raft made of books and sail it to the nearest allied persons. 

Violet Baudelaire had lived enough for a thousand years, and experienced enough treachery and trauma to make absolutely sure that there would be a complete lack of it in her daughter’s life, no matter what the cost.


	2. "Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The girls had visited the library a few times, but usually hurried out the side door (which was supposed to be accessible only to staff) after Violet became convinced that someone in the mycology section was staring at them.  
> Usually he would roll his eyes at her.  
> But today someone in the mycology section was staring at him."

For Klaus, work was something of a safe haven.

He’d always felt safe and comfortable in libraries, surrounded by novels and knowledge, knowing that if he could just find the time to read it all the whole world would be within his reach. And once he took a job at the local library, the feeling only strengthened.  
Theoretically, the four of them could have survived on the Baudelaire fortune alone for the rest of their lives. But Violet, ever paranoid, had insisted that it would look suspicious and draw attention if they were surviving with neither of them working. So, she had begun selling her inventions to townspeople, and he had taken a library job, to divert these imaginary suspicions and keep paying the rent on their small three bedroom apartment. 

 

While Klaus loved his sisters, they could be mildly infuriating. The people at work were far better. None of the other librarians had pressured him to get a job, or made him buy margarine instead of butter to keep up the illusion that they had no family fortune, or accidentally set the kitchen on fire while attempting to bake cookies with margarine instead of butter.  
Then again, the other librarians didn’t know why he was so skittish all the time, or why he had a tendency to retreat into his own head.  
Violet and Sunny were the only ones who knew that, and hopefully Beatrice never would.

 

The girls had visited the library a few times, but usually hurried out the side door (which was supposed to be accessible only to staff) after Violet became convinced that someone in the mycology section was staring at them.

Usually he would roll his eyes at her.

But today, someone in the mycology section was staring at him.

Her hair, once pulled back from her face and obscured by a diving helmet, was now cut to the length of her chin and dyed bright pink. Her glasses, once shaped like triangles, were now hexagonal, the lenses thicker than they used to be. He wasn’t sure if she’d had pierced ears six years ago, but she did now, two small silver anchors standing out against her tanned skin and loud hair.  
Fiona had changed so much in the years since the Queequeg that he almost didn’t recognise her, but evidently she recognised him. He supposed he’d changed a lot less. He’d only gotten taller.

It took a good twenty seconds of staring before Klaus departed for his boss’s office, making some half-hearted excuse to clock off early and rushing home in a barely concealed panic. 

For the next two weeks he managed to skillfully avoid her. He checked and double-checked aisles and even streets before he ventured down them, he never replaced books anywhere near the mycology or even biology sections of the library, and avoided the ‘Under The Sea’ decorations in the Children’s Library. When he did see her there, he kept himself busy on another floor or the other side of the building, making sure to never speak to her or even look at her for two long. His coworkers noticed that something was afoot (of course) but had no clue what (as usual) and elected to ignore it. He never mentioned seeing her to Violet, who would uproot them again out of fear of being tailed by VFD, or to Sunny, who either wouldn’t remember her from their time on the Queequeg or wouldn’t want to remember any of it. Beatrice, bless her sweet little heart, was far too young to have any idea. And, as he had learned from experience, she was no good at keeping secrets. 

 

And so his work days continued to be an escape from his sisters, but no longer from his past. His drive home was occupied by reminiscing and sometimes crying, mourning the teenage experience he could have had, should have had, and the heartbreak he had thought he’d gotten over. His nights were occupied by tossing and turning in bed, talking himself into approaching her the next day. And then talking himself out of it. And then talking himself back into it, and then out of it, and then into it again, and so on and so forth, until he physically couldn’t keep his eyes open and fell into a restless sleep. 

 

Klaus knew that if you tried not to think about something, you would inevitably end up thinking about it.  
He still tried not to think about Fiona.  
Which, of course, typical Baudelaire luck, ended up with him falling for her all over again.

 

Someone tapped him on the shoulder as he was replacing a copy of ‘Emma’ and he found himself looking at her - looking down at her, he was taller than her now - for the first time in six years and thought he might have a heart attack.  
“Hi,” she whispered.  
“Hi,” he replied, wondering how he was now talking to her after weeks of careful and clever avoidance.  
There was an awkward pause. He had a feeling this conversation would be littered with awkward pauses.  
“It’s good to see you,” she continued.  
“You too.”  
That was a lie. Was it a lie? He had no clue anymore.  
Another pause.  
Taking a leap of faith, he asked if they could talk after his shift. A library wasn’t exactly a good place for a conversation.  
“Oh, of course, yeah, totally,” she agreed, her voice growing in volume with each syllable. “I’ve heard that he who speaks in a library is cursed to eternal hellfire,” she added sarcastically.  
“Or she,” he interjected.

A smile lit up her face, and the two made plans to meet later in a park a few blocks away. Klaus made a mental note to tell Violet he was working late. 

As it turned out, Fiona had found this place while escaping VFD too. She had been here for three months. She was about to start working at the local grocery store and was considering going to the university in the next town over. She hadn’t wanted to talk about her brother. She had found Klaus’s library by accident. She was sorry for what she’d done.

Fiona talked. Klaus listened, grateful for the chance to think about something other than work and parenting, grateful for someone who could, on some level, understand.  
He was especially grateful for the chance to make up for lost time. As young teenagers they’d never had the chance to really do or be anything, either individually or together, too caught up in treachery and intrigue inherited from their parents. Perhaps now, as young adults, they could discover what they missed out on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again.  
> Well, this chapter was longer than the last one, wasn't it?  
> I've never understood why Fiona is such an unpopular character. I love her.  
> Anyway, chuck us a comment or a kudos if you liked it, I hope you did.  
> Have a good one, see you soon.


	3. "The horror of life and the ecstasy of life."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "These are the stories that keep her siblings up at night, and she experienced them alongside them. But she doesn't remember.  
> She was right there, the whole time. She wants to understand how they feel, but she can't."

Sunny is a lot closer to Beatrice than she is to Klaus and Violet.

She knows it's not abnormal for there to be a more distant relationship between siblings with such big age differences (there are kids at school who have much older siblings too). But there's something else, something much bigger causing a divide. She thinks it's the memories.

Violet and Klaus and have told her stories, about the fire and Count Olaf, about Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine, about their parents and VFD. These are the stories that keep her siblings up at night, and she experienced them alongside them. But she doesn't remember.

She was right there, the whole time. She should understand how they feel, but she can't.

She just feels so different to them. Even her looks are different. She doesn't blame the people who initially don't believe she, with her blonde curls and round face, is the sister of Violet and Klaus, with their dark hair and thin features. Klaus says that her hair probably came from something called a “recessive gene” that both of their parents had carried around with them. She's not sure, she wasn't really listening. In yet another twist differentiating her from her siblings, Sunny is completely uninterested in science and inventing. She'd much rather cook.  
Admittedly, she isn't very good at it yet, but her siblings and Beatrice pretend she is. It makes them happy, which makes her happy.

She cooks as often as possible, secretly that hoping that some cake will make Violet happy enough to stop looking over her shoulder, or that some cookies will make Klaus want to actually talk to her about why he's being so strange lately.  
She's not sure what they were like before everything that happened, but she thinks they must have been different. When Violet was 8, like Sunny is now, she can't have been this anxious. Klaus can't have been this secretive. 

 

Sunny spends most of her time recounting their story to little Beatrice, who wasn't around when it was happening. It makes more sense when she explains it to her, and it helps her understand her siblings. But she doesn't think she'll ever really know or understand them, no matter how much she wants to.

Sometimes, in a dark and almost inaccessible corner of her mind, she worries about the future. She mostly worries about how it will be affected by their past. She worries that Violet will be too scared to let the others go, that she just won't ever let them leave. And she thinks that Klaus will be so sick of it and so desperate to move on that he'll leave before any of them are ready.  
Klaus often tells her that when she's older things will make more sense. She hopes he's right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> Aaaaaand we're back to short chapters. Yay?  
> I guess I always wondered how the dynamic between Sunny and the others would develop as they all get older and Klaus and Violet are traumatised by what happened while Sunny doesn't remember it. I can't imagine that turning out any other way than by dividing the three of them. It makes me sad.  
> Anyway, next chapter (Beatrice) will probably be the last, and it might take a while for me to upload it because truth be told I have no ideas and I don't know how to write from the perspective of a five year old. BUT I swear I will finish this fic if it kills me*.  
>  *Figuratively, not literally.


	4. "Genius is...childhood recaptured at will."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "These conversations Beatrice was never meant to hear are where she first hears the words “emotional intelligence”.

Beatrice likes routine. And luckily, the Baudelaire-Snicket house has a very predictable one.

In the morning, she wakes up and eats Sunny’s breakfast. Despite being one of the younger ones, Sunny does most of the cooking, because she's the best at it. 

After breakfast, Violet helps her get ready for school, while Klaus inevitably realises he's late for work and trips over one of Violet’s tools as he hurries out. Then Violet walks Sunny and Beatrice to school, Sunny complaining and Beatrice listening. She doesn't hate school as much as Sunny does, although Sunny said that she would when she was older.

She walks home from school with Sunny, the two of them babbling about their day and figuring out what they're going to do when one of Sunny’s teachers calls to talk about her behaviour again.

When they get home, Violet is in her studio and Klaus is still at work. Sunny makes the two of them a snack, they talk or read or listen to the radio or watch TV until Violet realises they're home and makes Sunny do her homework. Beatrice watches, because she's not old enough to do homework yet, and demonstrates whatever she learned that day to Violet. 

Klaus gets home about an hour after the girls do. Sunny makes dinner (with Klaus’s help, because even Sunny needs a grown-up sometimes). After dinner they have “family time”, which usually devolves into arguments between the two younger girls or Violet yelling at someone (there's even a routine for when Violet yells - Sunny and Beatrice go to their room while Klaus calms her down, and then he brings them sweets to make them feel better). They used to play board games, but one too many family fights over who owed who money in Monopoly and what did and didn't count as a word in Scrabble put an end to that.

After “family time”, the little ones go to bed. Violet hugs and kisses them and tells them she loves them, even when she's been yelling at them. Klaus reads them a bedtime story, which Sunny says she's too old for but listens intently to anyway. Then the girls go to bed.

 

Except that every night, without fail, Sunny tells Beatrice their stories. All of them are stories Violet and Klaus told Sunny, and told Beatrice she would learn when she was older. She'll have to practice her reactions for when they tell her (she's already mastered her surprised face). Her favourite stories are the few short ones about her mother.

When Sunny’s stories are finished, Beatrice listens to Klaus and Violet talking downstairs. She has quite good hearing, and while she can't make out everything they say, nor can she understand it all, she can hear a great deal of it. They talk about the past and the future, they argue about money, they wonder about the people they met and speculate about where they are now. But mostly, they talk about her and Sunny.  
These conversations she was never meant to hear are where she first hears the words “emotional intelligence”. Klaus tells Violet that Beatrice has it "in spades", sounding quite happy for a change, and Violet knowingly agrees. 

They're right, as grown-ups tend to be. She has a knack for picking up on people's feelings, to figure out how to stop them being sad and keep them being happy, at least temporarily. She thinks everyone has one big feeling, though, the one emotion that guides and encompasses the others.

It's different for everyone.

Violet's is fear. After hearing Sunny’s stories, Beatrice can understand why. Violet worries constantly, afraid that everything will be ripped away again, just like it was at Briny Beach in the story. She's afraid they'll never escape. She's afraid of the future and afraid of the past, but from that fear comes a strength and determination. It makes her fight for their lives to be better.   
Klaus's is sadness. Again, understandably so. He prefers not to think about anything that happened before. He's noticeably softer than Violet, less on edge. Sometimes he seems like he’d rather be somewhere else, or with someone else, and she feels a bit guilty for making him stay. He gives her a nickname, and only ever calls her “Bea”. He doesn't want to think about Beatrice. Thinking about Beatrice makes him sadder. His avoidant behaviour can get perplexing, and even annoying, but the sadness drives him to make his family happy, so Beatrice can't complain.  
Sunny's is frustration. She's meant to understand the others, but she can't, and that annoys her. The frustration makes her act out at school, but it also makes her pour her heart and soul into cooking and into helping her siblings with Beatrice. 

Beatrice isn't sure what hers is yet. She thinks it must come from your life, and she hasn't had a very long life yet. She's only five. She knows she has some very complicated feelings that even she can't quite make sense of yet, especially about her family.  
What she does know is that everything will turn out alright. Things always looked bleak for the Baudelaires (and the Snickets). But in the end, it was okay. They had each other, and Beatrice thought that was more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> It was kinda hard to write from the perspective of an emotionally intelligent 5 year old, given that I'm an emotionally stupid 19 year old girl. But hey, I think it went okay! What do you think? Let me know!
> 
> ~~no the idea of a guiding emotion wasn't totally plagiarised from Inside Out what are you talking about~~
> 
> I'm thinking of making this the first in a series of future Baudelaire fics. The rest would probably be slice-of-life one shots, covering everything from fluff to angst to random shit I just felt like writing. If this sounds like a terrible idea, let me know. If it sounds like a great idea, let me know. If it sounds like an okay idea, let me know ~~I would like some comments I need attention.~~
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading this far. It's been a surprisingly wild ride for me. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.


End file.
